The Wonderful Garden or The Three Cs

‘I am much better. I am quite well,’ said Rupert obediently. ‘I am much better. I am quite well. I am much better. I am a bell. I shall ring presently for Mrs. Wilmington. I have a clapper inside my head. I am much better. I am a bell.’ And so on, for a very long time.

‘This is the delirium it talked about,’ said Caroline in a satisfied tone, and held the blankets down more firmly.

Presently Rupert began to shiver, and Charlotte fetched the eiderdowns from the beds of the three, while the others held the blankets tightly round Rupert, who now no longer seemed to know at all what he was saying, nor who he was saying it to. He talked about India, and seemed to fancy that Charles was his ayah and Caroline his syce. Charlotte he mistook for the Murdstone man, which was very painful for her. But they held the blankets tightly round him, even when he said it was too hot out there in the sun and begged to have the punkahs set going.

Then quite suddenly he went to sleep; they waited a little, and when they were quite sure that he was asleep, they took up the fur hearth-rug and put that on his bed for fear he should take cold, and then, very cold indeed themselves, but quite certain that their spell had cured Rupert, they crept back to their own beds – rather chilly places without their eiderdowns.

‘I know the spell will work,’ were Caroline’s last words. ‘You’ll see, Rupert will be all right in the morning.’

At five o’clock Mrs. Wilmington crept into Rupert’s room to see if he needed anything. The floor was strewn with wet, cold, crushed rose leaves, and on it lay two wet sheets. Rupert, rolled in a tangle of blankets, eiderdowns, and hearth-rug, was sleeping as a healthy baby sleeps. She laid her hand very gently on his forehead. It was cool and soft.

By breakfast-time Rupert was much better. The fever had gone.

‘So you see the spell did work,’ said Caroline. ‘Rupert is much better. I sometimes think we are much cleverer than grown-up people think we are. Rupert is much better.’

But all the three C.’s had dreadful colds in their heads.

CHAPTER XIII

THE ROSY CURE

When Mrs. Wilmington found Rupert asleep among the remains of the dewy, crushed rose leaves, she had the sense not to disturb him, but to put two more blankets over him and to let him go on sleeping, while she wrapped herself in a shawl and spent what was left of the night on the blue sofa at the end of the four-post bed.

Uncle Charles, coming down, neat and early, to his study, was met by a very pale housekeeper with prim lips tightly set, who said:

‘If you please, sir, them children leave this house or else I do. I mean those children.’

‘What have they been doing now?’ asked the Uncle wearily. He had thought of a new idea about Coptic magic while he was shaving, and he wanted to be alone with his idea and his breakfast.

‘Doing their very best to murder that poor young gentleman in his very bed,’ said the housekeeper, looking like a thin portrait of Mrs. Siddons.

‘Did they put flowers and things into the boy’s food or drink?’ the Uncle asked, frowning.

‘Worse, sir, far worse. They put him into flowers and things. And I’ve taken the liberty of sending for the doctor. And, please, mayn’t I pack their boxes? No one’s lives is safe – are, I mean.’ Mrs. Wilmington sniffed and got out her handkerchief.

‘Please control yourself,’ said the Uncle. ‘I will inquire into what you have told me, and I will see the doctor when he has seen the boy. In the meantime, kindly refrain from further fuss. And, please, tell the cook to serve another omelette and some fresh tea. These are no longer warm enough for human food.’

Mrs. Wilmington put her handkerchief in her pocket and went back to Rupert, who was now wriggling among the blankets and asking what he could have to eat.

Rupert was much better. There was not a doubt of it. Harriet had told the children as much, in confidence, when she brought their breakfast.

‘But Mrs. W. she is in a paddy and no error,’ Harriet assured them. ‘A regular fanteague she’s in. I wouldn’t be you for something. However you come to think of such things beats me. An’ she was on at the Master before he was up a’most about it, going on something chronic.’

‘How do you know?’ Charlotte asked.

‘Oh, I know more then you think, Miss,’ said Harriet, tossing her head. ‘I’ve ways of my own of finding out what I want to know. I know a sure spell to find out the gentleman’s name you’re going to marry,’ she added rather in a hurry. ‘I’ll show you some time, if this blows over and you don’t have to leave on account of it.’

‘Bother marrying,’ said Charlotte briefly. ‘I don’t mean to marry any one. I shall be an Arctic explorer, and sail in the cold waters of the North.’

‘It’s hot water you’ll be in first,’ said Harriet. ‘Don’t answer her back’s my advice. Then p’raps it’ll blow over. Least said soonest mended’s what I say. They can’t go on at you for ever if you don’t answer ’em back.’

‘If you don’t answer they say you’re sulky,’ said Charles, who sometimes noticed things.

‘No, they don’t, Master Charles; not if you keep on saying “Yes’m” and “No’m” every time they stops for breath. That’s the way to egg-sauce ’em, trust me it is.’

The three C.’s did not quite see their way to exhaust Mrs. Wilmington by saying “Yes’m” and “No’m” in answer to her reproaches, and they felt that she would not understand if they tried to explain why they had done what they did do. So they had rather a poor time with Mrs. Wilmington, who said a good deal about the rose leaves, and told them they might have been the death of Rupert, ‘when really,’ as Caroline said afterwards, ‘they had been the life and soul of his getting better.’

Mrs. Wilmington also told them that they were not to think of going out and getting into any more of their dangerous mischief, because their uncle was going to give them a right-down good talking to as soon as the doctor had been.

‘But we may go out to-morrow, mayn’t we?’ Charles asked hopefully. And Mrs. Wilmington replied:

‘Perhaps you won’t be here to-morrow’ – a very disquieting remark.

The children remained in the dining-room waiting for that right-down good talking to; and you know what a hateful thing that is to wait for. They sat there miserably, wondering whether Mrs. Wilmington could possibly happen by any extraordinary accident to be right for once, and whether they had done Rupert any harm. They tried to console themselves by saying every half minute or so, ‘But Rupert is better, all the same,’ and ‘Whatever she says, Rupert is better,’ and things like that.

One thing all felt, that they must see the doctor and know if they really had done any harm. Thoughts of concealing themselves in the wardrobe in Rupert’s room, and listening to the doctor’s wise words at the bedside, were dismissed, partly owing to an honourable feeling about listening, and partly because Mrs. Wilmington didn’t give them any opportunities for that sort of concealment. Listening at the Uncle’s door when the doctor had come down and been shown into the study was also impossible, for the same reasons. The only thing they could do was to keep the dining-room door open.

‘And pounce,’ said Caroline. ‘If we pounce, suddenly and well, we shall be able to say, “How is Rupert; is he really worse or better?” before any one can stop us. And the doctor is a gentleman. He must answer a lady’s question.’

‘You’re not ladies, you’re only little girls,’ said Charles. But the others made allowances. It was a time of trial. Caroline answered with that soft answer which is sometimes so hard to bear:

‘Yes, dear Charles, we are. Aunt Emmeline says you cannot begin to be a lady too soon, and that is why you must wipe your mouth before drinking as well as after, and never interrupt, and put on your gloves before you go out, and things like that. And when I gave my penny to the crossing-sweeper, you know, that muddy Friday, he said I was a real little lady. You must remember that day, Charles – the day you upset the ink over my Hereward the Wake.’

‘Here, I say, chuck it,’ said Charles, rather red. ‘I never – ’

‘Oh, Pax, for goodness’ sake,’ said Charlotte; ‘if we begin ragging just when we ought to stand by each other, we’re like deserters. United we stand, divided we fall a victim to the Wilmington. Hark! that’s the Uncle’s door.’

They flung themselves into the hall; and the astonished doctor, just saying a few last words of politeness to Uncle Charles, was met by a charge of children all firmly asking, ‘How is Rupert? Is he worse? Is he better? Did we really do him any harm?’

‘He’s much better,’ said the doctor, rubbing his hands cheerfully; ‘your rose leaves were a variant of what is known as the packing treatment. You did him a world of good. But,’ he added hastily, as Uncle Charles, behind him, uttered the ghost of a grunt, and Mrs. Wilmington, from the top of the stairs, coughed loudly and expressively, ‘it might have been very dangerous, very. Verdict: not guilty, but don’t do it again.’

And with that he laughed in a jolly, red-faced way, and went out of the front door and on to his horse and rode away.

‘And now,’ said the Uncle, leading the way back into the dining-room.

I will draw a veil over that scene. A right-down good talking to is never a pleasant thing to record. And I am not sure whether the three C.’s deserved this one or not. Was it chance or magic that made them do exactly the right thing for Rupert? Of course they explained fully to the Uncle that as it was a threefold spell it was bound to act exactly as it had acted. He shook his head, did not smile, and went on talking about responsibility and carefulness and so on. He really did smile when Charlotte, very near to tears, explained that they had only been acting like the Rosicurians in olden days. But he hid his smile in his handkerchief, and the children did not see it.

‘And now – ’ said the Uncle once again, and paused. The three children knew those words well, and each wondered what their punishment was to be.

‘I hope it won’t be lines,’ Charles told himself. ‘I’d rather anything than lines.’

‘I hope it won’t be keeping us in,’ thought Caroline. ‘I’d rather anything than be kept in. And such a fine day too.’

And still the Uncle paused, till Charlotte could bear it no longer. She did not stop to think what she would rather the punishment was or wasn’t. She said, ‘Oh, uncle, we really didn’t mean to be naughty! And it really hasn’t hurt him. But we don’t want to shirk. Only don’t keep us suspended. Let us know the worst. Are we to be hanged for a sheep as a lamb? You know you’re hanged twice if you’re hanged quickly. We’ll do whatever you say, and we don’t mind being punished if you think we ought. Only don’t do what the Wil – I mean, Mrs. Wilmington, said.’

‘What did she say?’

‘She said perhaps we shouldn’t be here to-morrow. Oh!’ said Charlotte, and began to cry. So did Caroline. Charles put his hands in his pockets and sniffed.